Description

SY 09 SW ROCKBEARE RAG LANE

3/118 Shrubbery garden walls
- approximately 175 metres south of
Rockbeare Manor
GV II

Garden walls. C18, enlarged and improved in early C19. Red brick with interlocking
tile coping, some limestone ashlar detail and wrought iron-gates.
Tall walls enclosing 2 large rectangular gardens, a formal garden with central
brick-lined pond at the north end (nearest the house) and kitchen garden to the
south. Both now largely disused.
The tall walls show different styles suggesting the work of different periods. The
oldest part appears to be the section of the southern wall of the formal garden
which has a plinth and pilaster buttresses breaking the wall into panels. The walls
seem to have achieved their present form in the early C19. The gardens are
separated by a tall crosswall containing a large central round-headed arch with
plain limestone impost and keystone. It is flanked front and back by pilaster
buttresses which rise well above the wall top as small plain-topped turrets. There
is another large gateway at the southern end of the kitchen garden. The best
entrance however is that in the centre of the northern end, from the house direction
to the formal garden. Here the northern wall ramps down in stages towards the
centre where quadrant walls break forward to square-section piers which contain
bands of limestone projecting from the brick and soffit-moulded caps surmounted by
balls. The gates are good quality wrought ironwork. The gate piers are enriched
with scrolls and curves. The gate is relatively plain with a dograil of arrowheads
and there is fine and ornate overthrow of rich scrolls either side of a central
upright. On the southern side is a small doorway with a fielded panel door and
sunken panel over filled with wrought ironwork. It was flanked by disused
glasshouses with brick corner piers surmounted by stone balls. The centre-piece of
the formal garden is a circular brick lined pond containing a small bronze of a
small boy with dolphins.
Source: C Hussey. Rockbeare Manor, Devonshire, Part I. Country Life, Vol 67 (1930),
pp 570-576

Listing NGR: SY0314193740

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26570545

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)